Traveling With Transit: Quad Cities to Chicago (and beyond!)

 So with all due respect to the Quad Cities International Airport (MLI), which is, as so many things in the Quad Cities are, a perfectly good if very small version of what it is--in this case, an airport--it has relatively few connections and most of them are through Chicago.

Chicago is less than 200 miles away, and although we have not yet received our long-discussed actual passenger service there, it is still often more efficient and much cheaper to fly out of the Chicago airports, ORD and MDW, rather than connecting from MLI.

However, this is very difficult if you don't have a car. The Metrolink route 20 on the Illinois side of the Quad Cities will run to MLI, so you can get to that without a car, but it's much more difficult to get to the Chicago airports that way--at least until that train shows up (someday...).

But difficult doesn't mean impossible. Here is my account of doing just that: a no-car trip from my home in Davenport to Chicago O'Hare.

Hopeful Signs in Rock Island

Because Illinois is simply more willing to fund transit and other urbanist initiatives than Iowa right now, the best urbanist improvements in the Quad Cities right now tend to be on the Illinois side.

The upcoming changes on 7th Ave (the main drag of downtown Rock Island, though not the main commercial street because the traffic is going too fast) are a good example of this.

7th Ave (which twists and turns into 5th Ave as it winds its way into Moline) is very wide right now, and it doesn't need to be. The key change appears to be that Illinois DOT recognizes this, and is going to not only narrow it but (wonder of wonders) add a bike lane to it. 

That would be a major help to bike commuters in particular, because 7th Ave is a very useful thoroughfare in this area:

The arrow here is 7th Avenue; there is bike path on the riverfront to the north, but it winds and doesn't always interact with the street grid in useful ways. Adding a bike lane on 7th means making it infinitely easier to traverse this area on a bike, especially if you're actually going somewhere in or around downtown Rock Island (like, say, the courthouse, library, city hall, or any of the restaurants or shopping). 

Will this make a big difference for me personally? Probably not immediately, since biking across the bridges that lead towards 7th Ave from Davenport is not particularly easy. But it certainly makes it more likely that now that the Government Bridge to the Arsenal is back open, I'll make my way across it once this additional work is done, and down to 7th instead of across the riverfront.

Getting Around: London

When I visited London this summer, I made an effort to take as many different types of public transit there as I could in the time I was there. I ended up missing out on one that I know of--the Uber Boats--but otherwise I hit up everything I intended to take. And today, I want to take a brief look at each of these types of public transit in London to think about what was good, what was bad, and what I wish I could see more of in the United States. Warning: this is a bit longer of a post, so I'm sticking everything after the Tube under a jump.

1. The Underground

The Tube, the Underground, for Americans the subway: this is probably the most iconic of London transportation. I took a couple of Underground lines while I was in London and I've taken many, many more when I've been there before, and frankly it always manages to simultaneously please me and disappoint me. 

On the one hand, it is crowded, often noisy, and increasingly warming up. Depending on the line, you may have some rather old rolling stock, and in some places it's not necessarily faster than walking. It's the part of London's transit mix that feels like it's changed the least since I first visited the city almost two decades ago, and that can all add up to, well, a little disappointment.

Pretty sure this exact train was here then

On the other, there's a reason RM Transit calls it the "quintessential rapid transit system," and it's not just that it dates from 1863. It's a pretty comprehensive network for a metro (especially when integrated with everything else London has to offer, as detailed below) and while in the absolute center of the city it can be slow, it's much faster than anything that would be on the surface--not to mention, it does a really good job of cutting across parts of the city that can be confusing or difficult to traverse on foot. There's a reason the Tube map isn't actually a map but a network diagram: it doesn't parallel the street network, it substitutes for it.

It has its flaws, but I miss the Tube when I'm not in London--I even miss it when I'm on the south bank of London, but that's a point for later here.

How could I stay mad at this?

Also, there are parts that are getting actual platform screen doors and other innovations, so that's nice to see finally making its way into the old system.

Why I Love Aldi

This may seem like an odd post on an urbanist website, but I promise it fits. I love our local Aldi for several reasons: price, convenience, speed, the random little items you can only get there, regional English cheddars, etc. But one of the biggest is this: I can bike there and back, and they expect me to and make it easier to.

This might seem counterintuitive. After all, Aldi famously doesn't do anything for shoppers, not even free bags! But one thing they do, at least at all our local Aldis, is bike racks.

And that's not a little thing. Here's a Hy-Vee, one of our largest local chains of grocers, with a huge parking lot even though this is in central-west Davenport, surrounded by residential zoning:

And here is the best spot to park a bike there, as already claimed by another bike:

Having a bike rack is not a small consideration (I ended up locked to one of the cart racks you can make out in the background). It means I can safely leave my bike to go shop at your store! And it means I don't have to worry about me, my bike, anything on my bike (since I'm commuting with it), or any passengers (since I often take the kids to the store) while I'm doing that: not while I'm parking and not while I'm in the store. 

It makes me more likely to shop there, more likely to stay longer and get more, and more likely to feel valued as a customer.

And that's why I love Aldi. I don't hate Hy-Vee (and there are Hy-Vees with bike racks). But I like that part of the Aldi store design seems to be a willingness to imagine that wherever you are, someone might decide to come with a bike.

Book Review: Carlos Moreno's "The Fifteen Minute City"

I recently read Carlos Moreno's The Fifteen Minute City in 2 sessions across 2 days (it's a fast read) and I wanted to share some thoughts about the book. I don't think this is the must-read for urbanism enthusiasts I had hoped it would be, but it's also a good book. It just has very strong differentiation between sections, as I'll specify below:

1. The book starts slow

When I first started reading The Fifteen Minute City, I was disappointed. I thought I would be reading about the concept of the fifteen-minute city and coming to a better understanding of what it was and what the logic underpinning it was. Instead, the first 100 pages (give or take) of a 250 page book is basically, from my perspective, fluff: it's deeper history of urban planning and general details about how the idea of the fifteen-minute city came to be, including Moreno's intellectual journey, but it's not particularly in-depth and a lot of it feels repetitive. It feels more or less like a slide deck turned into a book: the illustrations don't add much and aren't really integrated, and the text itself is more about where Moreno has been intellectually than about the actual concept.

2. The middle is OK but important 

The next fifty or so pages are fine. He does finally turn to the actual fifteen-minute city concept, and explain a bit about what it means, but frankly this section reads like it should have been the start of the book, not the middle. It doesn't really need what came before. And also, it really assumes that you're already familiar with the concept, and just interested in how and why it spread, rather than in any actual detail about why it was developed the way it was. The key lack is an explanation of the complement to the fifteen-minute city idea, the thirty-minute territory. This is mentioned again and again but basically explained never. How is it different from the other concept? How do they interact? The book is fundamentally unclear on these points.

However, this section is valuable as a grounding for what comes next.

3. The book absolutely rocks the last third

The section of the book that justifies the rest comes once Moreno has finished the throat-clearing and engages with individual case studies. Starting with Paris and moving through the usual urbanist suspects but also some more surprising and unusual ones, Moreno gives brief but compelling descriptions of how the concept is informing urban growth and planning in a multi-continental set of cities and even towns. These could still use a bit more specificity--how is Melbourne's 20 minute city distinct from the 15 minutes of the title? Does the distinction matter?--but that's a minor quibble. This is the meat of the book and the best part, and I highly recommend it.

In many ways the sheer profusion of examples is what carries this section: comparing the various reads on the concept from different cities and politicians allows the flexibility and value of the concept to shine through. There is plenty here, but of course there could always be more. And that is perhaps the greatest strength of the fifteen-minute city concept as illustrated in the book: the sheer number of ways it can actually come into being in a practical way, and the range of places it applies to.

Overall, the book is well worth a read; just be aware, as I was not going in, of how much the strength of the book lies at the end.

(Human) Cargo (E-)Biking

 One of the most significant changes to my daily routine in the past few years has been the active inclusion of biking into my daily routine--and not, as I have already mentioned in this blog, recreational cycling, but biking as a major part of my transportation mix. I bike to work; I bike to shop; I bike to pick children up from daycare; my bike is, if not a full car replacement (more on that below), a major car supplement and an option when the car is not available or inconvenient for some other reason.

I believe that this is a good change for me, and could be a good change for many other people, although if there were to be anything more than the smallest of small-scale movement in this direction in Quad Cities there would need to be a significant increase in biking infrastructure.

Let me tell you why.

1. For short trips, the bike is better

Let me define my terms for this claim, since I can already imagine people yelling at me out of their car windows about this. When I say that for short trips the bike is better, I mean the following:

a) the bike is just about as fast

My work is a mile or so from my house. To bike there takes 10 minutes door to door; to drive takes about 5, except that I have to park my car further from my actual office than I have to park my bike. Thus it literally takes about the same amount of time to do it--and this is when the streets around me are not under construction. When they are, the bike is faster because the optimal route for the bike is both more flexible than the optimal route for the car and goes on fewer main roads (that therefore are less likely to be affected by maintenance).

b) the bike has advantages the car does not

The most obvious of these is that I get some exercise while biking. Yes, an e-bike (which I use) is not going to produce as much exercise per mile as an analog bike. But it's more than my car, for sure, and I'm much more likely to use it than I was when I had a non-electric bike to work with. And there are other benefits: I see my neighbors, I explore my neighborhood, and I find that I arrive in a better mood and more ready to do whatever comes at the far end of the ride on an e-bike than in a car.

c) side trips are easier on the bike

I can stop by the library or the store very quickly on the bike; they have bike racks right by them, I can pop in and out, and then I'm back on my way. This is harder with the car because it's harder to fit the car into traffic, it's harder to find a parking space (and it's often further away), and I'm usually not going by those places on the car (since as I said above, the optimal routes differ for the two vehicles). This is particularly true for destinations, like the library, that are in places with large parking lots and not many other options for cars, since the bike usually avoids having to park-and-walk.

This is most visible, perhaps, at Aldi, where the bike rack is right next to the carts:

2. For long trips, a car is better but a bike can be an option

My wife's work is 9.5 miles away by car from our home and 10.7 miles away by bike. Not only is that route less efficient by miles for the bike, it also takes much longer. It's a pleasant ride for most of it (though see above about Quad Cities bike infrastructure needing improvement) but it's definitely not great for an everyday commute. I have done it a couple of times, especially when a car is in the shop, so I can say: it is doable.

It would be much more doable with functioning public transit in the Quad Cities, but that's again another post topic. But bikes and transit do work better together, a force multiplier if you will, so if you are somewhere with good transit that lets you bring your bike, that makes longer distances much easier.

3. The e-bikes are fun and more capacious than people think

This matters. A lot of people think cars are cool, but the e-bikes are genuinely fun to ride and I think they're cooler. My kids agree; I've been told by the older one that I ought to get them on the bike all the time and not the car. This is not actually going to happen, not least because of that bad QC infrastructure, but it's nice to hear.

And yes, them: I can get two kids on a cargo e-bike, and also a load of groceries at the same time. Well, I can do that on one of them. We have three e-bikes as a family, and all three can take at least one child. Two can take one, the Lectric XP 2.0 and the Jetson Bolt Pro (with in both cases an additional modification for child carrying):

And one, an Aventon Abound, can take them both:

I love the capacity on the Abound--and I love the torque sensor that makes the ride smooth and easy too. I can't get literally anything on the bike I could get with a car--there are four of us in the family, and none of these bikes can take all four of us, for a start, though two at once can--but I can get most of what I would get with a car on a bike for a much lower cost of purchase, maintenance, insurance, etc., and without a big loss of time or a huge amount of effort.

E-biking, especially the kind of cargo e-biking I'm doing, is not a full alternative to a car, at least not here in the Quad Cities. Snow and sleet and freezing cold are still much less pleasant in a vehicle open to the elements, not least for the children. The distances in our car-centric city designs are still ridiculously large and often not good for bikes. But I've gotten out of the car a lot in the last two years, and for the last month my wife's car hasn't been working and we've been able to make things still happen largely because the e-bikes are there. If that's not an argument in favor of having one available and trying it out, well, I don't know what is.

The Sadness of the "Cloud Car"

 On a recent(ish) trip to London, I undertook to take every form of transit I could while also fulfilling my other duties that had actually brought me to London. That will be the topic of a future post. For now, I want to focus on a form of transportation I had had high hopes for, since I know it has been made very useful in cities like Medellín and Mexico City. That is the many-named London cable car, now officially branded (as of this writing) as the IFS Cloud Cable Car. The basic idea is quite different from the cable cars that ply their trade in San Francisco, though of course there is still a cable involved, as well as something that could generously be called a car. It is a medium-sized box with windows that is moved along a lengthy cable that, in turn, its attached to high pillars that allow the car to be an elevated mode of transit.

Now, the IFS Cloud Cable Car is notoriously not actually a particularly useful piece of transit itself. It doesn't count towards your transit daily cap in London, even though you can at least use the common Oyster card, making it expensive for non-tourist use, especially daily commuting or any similar use; it is only one connection between two points, unlike the larger systems in Latin America; and it doesn't actually articulate with the other transit in the city, not just in terms of fares--though this being London, the distance to other outposts of TfL was measured in meters not kilometers.

But I had high hopes nonetheless because I hoped that at least the experience itself would be good, if its implementation was not. After all, another Thames crossing is a good thing, and one that promises views of the city is as well. But my experience was a disappointment for multiple reasons, some of which are more general than others but none of which are entirely unique to me. So here are my reasons that the Cloud Car is not as good as it could be--and why while I remain excited that Latin America is making this mode of transportation work, I'm not exactly booking tickets to float my way around Medellín yet.

1. Heights. I forgot about heights.

As I have gotten older, I have gotten worse with heights. This is unfortunate, as many exciting and fun things are at height. And I can generally enjoy the tops of volcanoes and overlooks and such things. But the Cloud Car does not let you forget that you are not only at height but precariously perched at that height, and the sensation was rather unpleasant because of that.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Because of how the cable car design shuttles you back and forth, there are always other cable cars for you to look at passing you in the opposite direction. And so even if the cable car you are in is not swaying (which mine was) and even if you don't look down (which would kind of defeat the purpose of the views), you get a constant reminder that you are situated like these people are, and that your gondola is also hanging from that cable in exactly the same way. And that there's a lot of down underneath it.

Yes, this is something many others will not have a problem with, but I am also aware that I am not the only person in the world who dislikes heights, and this is a much more heights-y experience than, say, an elevated rail line which is also above things.

2. Size and speed

The gondola is medium-sized, as I said, but that is misleading. It's small compared to a bus or a train, and very small compared to a modern subway/metro/Tube that has open carriages. This size:

Or, from outside:

It feels more like a Ferris wheel (another contraption I obviously am not a huge fan of, but which doesn't actually transport people from place to place and so does not belong in this blog) than like a transit mode. And while that might be attractive, it also limits throughput of people, even if (thanks to the grade-separation from anyone but a very low-flying aircraft) the cable car can be automated and so can keep running as long as it has power and maintenance. 

It's also not exactly fast: the cars don't really stop, since the cable doesn't really stop, and so they go slowly enough that one can embark and disembark in each station as they move. And therefore they go pretty slowly in midair too, which is suboptimal again for actually moving people along.

3. Exposure to environmental conditions

Now, I am not saying the gondola is open or badly sealed. But I am saying that when you are taking a cable car, your car is subject to wind and rain on the outside, which affects your ride on the inside. This can obviously be a positive: a glorious shiny day would make these view much more impressive and thus the cable car more attractive:

But just to be clear: I took this gondola in mid-July. In London, that's no guarantee of good weather, as you see by the visible raindrops on the window. And that's in July; though I suppose a cold clear winter day might actually also have better views, you need a city with minimal precipitation/fog/smoke/other sky irritants to truly get the best of this form of transportation.

And London ain't it.

I do see the benefits of the system, especially in cities that are very built up and/or difficult to dig through (the pillars, while not small, aren't "dig up the entire street" large), and in places with elevation changes (since they go up and down very easily for obvious reasons). But it's not a great fit in London, and it was in general a worse experience than I had hoped for. I much prefer transit like the Paris tram where I can disagree with the tourist guide reviews that say that it isn't useful; sadly here I must agree with the massed opinions I have seen online and conclude that the Cloud Car is not a good fit for what it is trying to do.

Though I still hold out hope that it would be much better as part of a larger, more intentional system, so maybe someday I'll make it out to the cities that have done a better job with the technology.

Trams, Trams, Glorious Trams

 Ah, trams. Streetcars. Trolleys. Lightest of light rails. We used to have them in the Quad Cities; in fact, Davenport was a very early adopter of electric streetcars, back in the 1880s. 

We don't have them anymore.

But that's not the point of this post. Sure, I'd love to have them back; don't ask how much time in NIMBYRails I've spent drawing hypothetical routes you could use to cover the Quad Cities in public transit that doesn't feature a bus an hour (more on that in a later post). But this post is positive! Excited! Gushing! Because this post is actually about the excellent tram systems I've had the chance to ride in other cities, and what I think makes them great.

1. Croydon's trams are underrated

The Croydon Tramlink/Tramlink/London Trams/whatever they're calling it this Wednesday are a very underrated form of transportation. Sure, they're not the Tube, the Overground, Crossrail/the Elizabeth Line, or the DLR. In other words, sure, London is overgrown with excellent transportation options that aren't trams, and I haven't even mentioned their mainline trains. But that doesn't mean the trams aren't good. It just means that London has an embarrassment of riches.

I recently had the chance to visit South London for a business trip, and grabbed the chance to ride the trams (not actually my first time doing that, but the first time in a while). 

Here's what I found myself looking at:

Here we are in West Croydon, at the edge of a pedestrianized area, and there's the tram making its merry way through the road and then going (as you can see in the edge of the picture) in a direction that cars can't. And that's what I like about the Croydon trams; they don't duplicate anything else that you can do. In addition to the space they share, like the street above, they go places you can't walk, can't drive, and can't take other transportation either. And they're a happy medium between a higher-capacity but also higher-cost line like a Tube line on the one hand, and something like these buses on the other:

These are also in Croydon. And I have nothing against the London buses. In fact, I love them too! But just by seeing the bus I can't actually tell where it's going, whereas the tram line is a bit more obvious, even when it's not in the middle of the street:

I'm not saying the Croydon trams are perfect. In fact, they're probably the worst of the three systems I'm going to talk about here (spoilers, I guess). But they are quite pleasant to ride, distinctive from the rest of the transport options in London, and they whisked me from Croydon to Wimbledon in relative comfort and ease.

2. Paris knows what it's about

Paris has been actively increasing its tram offerings in recent years; in fact, I visited in January and I'm pretty sure more tram routes have opened since I've been there! Unlike in London, Paris has trams all over the place, though like London, mostly not in the main city center. That link I just gave you suggests that this makes them uninteresting to tourists, to which I say: mais non! 

The Paris trams are not in the main city center, but they're still about moving people from place to place, and like most transit systems they focus on places people want to be. Places like this:

That football (soccer for us Americans) stadium is served by this tram line:

And that tram looks like this inside:

It's a nice two-by-two layout, with plenty of space. It wasn't packed the day I took the tram photos, but it sure was the day I took the stadium photo (which is why I didn't take the tram photos then)! And the station I caught the tram from was also an RER B stop, so if you couldn't tell from the map linked up above, I can tell you that the trams are well-integrated into the larger transit universe of Paris (though apparently they'll remain on a separate fare system from the RER and metro, along with the buses, with the new fare rates coming in 2025).

This tram was much more comfortable than the Croydon tram, much faster even in traffic, and much cooler looking (which doesn't really matter...except it does matter). Paris's trams are a serious system of 13 lines, and you can tell why. Sure, you can't get to the Louvre on one--but that should just be a reminder that Paris is more than the center city, and tourists (just like locals) can benefit from getting out into the rest of the city as well.

3. Amsterdam's trams are better than its Metro

I have nothing against the Amsterdam metro. It's small, but I liked it! But every single time I wanted to go somewhere, the tram system was more direct and more helpful, especially when it connected directly to the bus network in various spots. Like in Paris, the tram system is a central part of the larger transportation system in Amsterdam. Here's one turning around directly in front of Centraal station:

And here are the catenary wires that tell you trams come here too from various angles around the same spot, showcasing how many tram lines radiate out from the center:

As you can see, that includes a connection to the Metro I just insulted earlier, as well. I don't have nearly as many pictures of the Amsterdam trams, because I was too busy actually taking them all over the place! But the main takeaway I got from Amsterdam was this: in a city that values people not driving, trams can take a major role. Bike lanes, tram lanes, and bus lanes dominated the streets in Amsterdam, and while I certainly saw plenty of cars, they weren't the dominant life form on the street like they are in America. Amsterdam's trams are a big part of that--partly because they do integrate so well with buses, bikes, and trains.

So consider for your city (or four, in my case) what a tram could do for you. Whether the single-line alternative of Croydon, the peripheral connector of Paris, or the center-city system of Amsterdam, a tram might just be the ticket to improved mobility in any city--if properly connected to the rest of your transit system, of course!

Biking in the Quad Cities

The Quad Cities do not put their best foot forward when it comes to biking. I can speak to this from very personal experience, since I bike in the Quad Cities pretty much every day. Here is a picture of one of my bikes at a local park, for proof.

Now it's possible that this is because I use my bike in a way that the Quad Cities are not actually built for: I commute. And that brings us to the first point about biking in the Quad Cities:

1. The Quad Cities assume you are biking for leisure

We actually have a few decent recreational trails in the Quad Cities, most notably in Davenport the Duck Creek Trail. It's a nice ride; the creek is pretty, the path is not that much used so you can bike how you want, and the other trail users are pleasant people. It's shaded most of the way because trees grow along the creekbank, and the parts that sometimes have historically flooded have been re-engineered in recent years. It's a fine trail. I'd recommend it! 

But it's also the only major trail in Davenport, and it doesn't have good connections to other bike trails or bike paths. The idea is that you're supposed to bike to a trailhead (Duck Creek Park, Marquette Park, Garfield Park, etc.) and then ride. The local trail guides confirm this, as does the tourism bureau. We get cyclists on the big trails here, and every so often RAGBRAI comes into town, but that's what biking is assumed to be: not an everyday part of life except as exercise or recreation.

2. The Quad Cities roads are terrible for bikes

This leads to the major problem that I encounter when I use the bike to go to work, or to drop my kids off at daycare (see the kid's seat on the bike above? It gets regular use). The roads in the Quad Cities are, to put it kindly, corrugated like cardboard, from the perspective of a bike. We get regular freeze/thaw cycles here, and that means potholes. Not only that, but when they "fix" the potholes, they do so in a way that works for cars, but is still bad for bikes: they don't make the road smooth at all. Instead, you get a road that has lots (and lots) of little bumps in it; bumps that a car barely notices but that a lighter bike with smaller wheels (compared to a car, at least) notices very much.

Like this (also note the lovely driver who has parked halfway on the sidewalk--not that I'm biking on the sidewalk, since I took this while walking): 

This is especially true if you are biking to a destination, like say a workplace or a school, that gets a lot of car traffic, roughing up the roads.

It is even more true if you have weight on the bike, like say a couple of kids on the back or a load of groceries, because then the bike tire has more pressure on it.

Let's just say I've had more than a few flats, and my bike mechanic actively flinches when he sees the state of my rims.

3. There are other issues as well

I mentioned that the Duck Creek Trail is a fine trail. Well, that relies on it being in operation, and recently they took out a whole stretch of it for sewer work next to the titular Duck Creek. First, that means that the trail, of course, stops.

Then it sends you around to what looks suspiciously like just someone's backyard:

And it ends up asking you to cross a bridge that is clearly signed for pedestrians only, which is somewhat of a concern if you are (as I was) riding a bike:

And let me be clear: this is by far the best-signed and most functional detour I have ever seen in the Quad Cities.

Overall, biking here isn't as terrible as it could be. There are a lot of quiet streets (though few bike lanes). The weather is surprisingly acceptable except when no one wants to go out in any vehicle. And I do manage to mostly commute by bike, including picking up my children and the occasional groceries. But it's not because the Quad Cities want me to be able to do this. It's because I can manage to get around the difficulties and still make it work.